


i just want my heart to fall apart

by rainingroses05



Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, F/F, IT'S GAY, LGBT Themes, Post-Canon, Romance, Underage Drinking, and also a mess, idk what this is but i missed them so, this took me like a month to write for some reason because i'm AWFUL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingroses05/pseuds/rainingroses05
Summary: "I miss you, she wants to say. I feel like I’m drowning. I haven’t taken one good long breath since the first time I went under and I don’t think I’ll ever breathe right again."





	i just want my heart to fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Ashes" by Andy Brown.

         The silence wakes her. After sleeping in a cabin filled with loud breathing and snoring and the periodic snapping of Jupiter’s hair tie, her room is unnaturally quiet. It feels empty, like there should be someone here with her, which is just stupid because this has been her room since it stopped being her dad’s office, and she’s never shared it with anyone but the cat.

         She stares at the ceiling until her eyes adjust to the dark, and she can make out tiny cracks in the plaster, at which point she decides she’s been staring at the ceiling for entirely too long. She stretches one arm out, feeling around on her bedside table for her phone. Her fingers brush against the cool screen. Before she knows it she’s opened a new message and is typing in Jupiter’s name.

         There’s one crazy part of her that wants to just call her, make her talk without proofreading her sentences. It’s not like Jupiter is sleeping. It’s not like any of them are sleeping.

         **hey.**

The dots indicating that Jupiter is typing appear on her screen. Jupiter types for a long time. Then she stops. She deletes. She types again.

         **r u writing me a text or a fucking novel?**

**ha sorry. hey.**

Neptune rubs her thumb across the screen, feeling a flash of gratitude for the unwavering four bars of service in the left corner of the screen. She waits to send a reply, letting Jupiter repeat her pattern of type, delete, type, send.

         **it’s late. is everything ok?**

She ignores the question because the answer is too long and complicated for this text conversation.

         **were you sleeping?**

Cold air blows in through the half open windows. Neptune wraps the blankets more tightly around her shoulders, blowing her hair out of her face in a huff of breath.

         **no, you?**

**not much**

She turns her phone over in her hands. _I miss you_ , she wants to say. _I_ _feel like I’m drowning. I haven’t taken one good long breath since the first time I went under and I don’t think I’ll ever breathe right again._ But those words never quite seem to make their way to the surface. Instead, there’s this:

         **what r u doing next week**

Neptune presses the warm screen of her phone to her chest.

 

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

It takes everything she has not to reach across the table and take her hand. But Jupiter has a look on her face like she’s ready to bolt, so Neptune folds her hands in her lap and waits. Just for now. 

         “I think my mom’s disappointed that she didn’t get back a shiny, new daughter,” Jupiter’s saying softly, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She has dark shadows under her eyes.

         Neptune can’t stop herself from making a face.

         “I mean, she’s my mom. I missed her,” Jupiter says hurriedly, filling the silence with all of the things she’s supposed to say.

         “You’re too easy on people who don’t deserve it,” she observes flatly, taking a long sip of her coffee.

         Jupiter shrugs. “Who does deserve it?”

         Neptune glances down at her phone.

         “I missed _you_ ,” Jupiter says, so fast that the words stick together in one messy sound, but Neptune smiles. “Sorry,” Jupiter mutters, her face flooding red. Then there it is: snap. The unmistakable sound of her hair tie hitting her wrist.

         “Give me that.”

         “What?”

         “Your hair tie.”

         “Oh. Um.” She slides the black elastic off her wrist, looking slightly nervous to part with it.

         Neptune holds out her hand.

         “Here.” she drops it into her palm, their fingers brushing, a flicker of what must be relief flashing across her face.

         Neptune twists it between her fingers for a moment before gathering her hair into a ponytail and tying it back. A loose strand falls into her face. “I missed you, too.” That’s when she reaches under the table and takes Jupiter’s hand in hers. Just for a minute. Just for now.

 

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

The next time Neptune sees her, she has a new black hair tie around her wrist.

         They walk around the mall while they wait for Venus to show up.

         “So…” Jupiter looks down at the sidewalk. “How’s school?”

         “It sucks.” Neptune pulls her phone out and flicks through her text messages. “Venus is _so_ late.”

         “Yeah,” Jupiter says. Her voice is distant, like she’s walking down a tunnel, getting farther and farther away. Fading.

         Neptune glances up at her.

         Her eyes are cloudy, and she’s fiddling with the hair tie on her wrist, her gaze fixed on something Neptune can’t see.

         Neptune tucks her phone into her back pocket and reaches for her hand, closing her fingers around her wrist before sliding their palms together. “Jupiter?” She feels her squeeze back, faintly. It’s only a matter of time before she pulls her hand away, out of reach. But. Until then. She’ll take what she can get. She likes the feeling of Jupiter’s hand in hers.

         Jupiter coughs. “Ah. Neptune. People are looking-”

         “I don’t care.”

         “I can never tell if you really don’t care or if you just like to say so.”

         “I really don’t care,” she repeats, and she doesn’t, and she’d like to kiss her right then and there but. But. “People are always looking at you. Even if you’re not _doing_ anything. They just wait for you to screw up.” She wonders if Jupiter can tell that she’s just stalling now. She traces a tiny circle on the back of her hand.

         “Ha. I guess you’re right. So, it doesn’t make any difference,” Jupiter says, but she pulls her hand back anyway.

         Neptune crosses her arms. She doesn’t push. Because the last thing she wants to do is hurt her, because she’s scared, because there are worse things Jupiter can do than snap her hair tie.

         “There’s Venus.” Jupiter waves a little.

         Venus waves back and crosses the parking lot to join them.

         Neptune takes them to a movie, where no one has to talk about what’s going on in their head.

 

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Neptune occasionally considers the possibility that she’s losing her mind.

She can never sleep. She dreams of drowning. She wants to keep herself busy in some way, but the thought of talking to any of her old friends makes her feel sick. So, she plays stupid games on her phone and paces and can’t sit still. It’s just… She’s just… stir crazy. That’s the word she’s looking for.

         That’s what makes her want to scream at the top of her lungs and turn her music up too loud and go to parties full of people she hates and leave the house at midnight just to go outside and get drunk on nighttime air and possibly actual alcohol.

Her parents are out of town for the weekend and, in some lapse of judgement, trusted her at home alone.

         “Text Venus,” she told Jupiter last time they were together, in that little coffee shop with the brownies Jupiter loves. “We’re doing something fun this weekend.”

         And here they are, crammed in the back of the car of an older girl who owes Neptune a favor on their way to a party she’s bribed her way into.

         “What kind of party is this?” Venus whispers as they step inside. “I’m going to suffocate in the smell of alcohol.”

         Neptune laugh. It sounds a little too loud to her. A little out of control. “The fun kind.”

         Jupiter is giving her nervous sideways glances. The flashing colored lights spill across her face.

         Neptune locates the drinks and downs a cup of something strong while Venus and Jupiter whisper in the corner. And another. She’s lost count by the time she winds up in the bathroom, coughing over the sink.

         “What are we doing?” Jupiter asks. She sounds tired. She doesn’t elaborate, but Neptune knows what she means without the excess words. “Why are we here?”

         “I don’t know. Unhealthy coping mechanisms?” She attempts a laugh, but there must be something wrong with it because Jupiter and Venus exchange nervous glances.

         They look like a mess. They _are_ such a mess. Jupiter isn’t wearing shoes anymore, her bare feet pressed together on the tile floor. Venus is wringing her hands together, eyes flitting around the room like something evil might jump out of the walls.

         “I just wanted it to stop,” Neptune says, frustrated that they can get her to talk to them without even speaking.

         “What?”

         “I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t know.” She rubs angrily at her eyes. “I just wanted to stop thinking about it.”

          “It’s okay, Neptune. it’s going to be okay,” Jupiter says, brushing Neptune’s hair out of her face. Her voice is very soft. So are her hands. Jupiter has very soft hands.

         Venus sits on the floor, grabbing Neptune’s arm and pulling her down with her.

         The silence is heavy.

         “I know this was stupid. It was a bad idea, so go ahead. Say what you want to say,” Neptune says, her voice breaking the humming silence.

         “Do you… want us to hate you or something? ‘Cause that’s stupid and also never going to happen,” Venus says. She yawns. “But we can go home now, right?”

         Jupiter sits down beside them, leaning back against the cabinets beneath the sink.

         “This is kind of disgusting. We’re sitting on the floor in someone’s bathroom,” Venus whispers, but she doesn’t move.

         Jupiter inches just slightly closer, so that her shoulder brushes Neptune’s.

         They sit on the floor like that, messy, pressed together, until Jupiter pulls her phone out and calls someone to come pick them up. Some girl with a car. Some girl she knows from school or something. Jupiter tells them her name.

         Neptune doesn’t remember it. Her car smells like gas station air freshener that’s doing the opposite of its job, and it’s gross, and she plays the Christian music radio station on full volume. She drops them off at Neptune’s house.

         “We’re not going to leave you here all alone,” Venus says, and five minutes later they’re all sitting in Neptune’s bed with every extra blanket from the living room piled on top of them.

         She listens to Jupiter and Venus breathing, and she likes the way the sound makes the room less empty, but she can’t help but feel guilty for it. She can’t help but feel guilty keeping them here, with her, like maybe they’re birds and she’s supposed to set them free.

         Because they were good, and she was bad, and now they’re all… _this._ She wants to wrap her arms around them both and protect them in some crazy sort of way, but maybe she’s what they need protection _from._

         She is corruption and poison and sin. She is all the words that people whisper just a bit too loudly in the hallway. She is everything the first girl she ever kissed said she was, the girl with long blonde hair and soft hands and lips that tasted like strawberry but could also say things like, “She _manipulated_ me into this,” and “I was _fine_ before _she_ came along.” She turns angels into demons, but maybe all angels have just a bit of the Devil in them, because all she’s ever done is chip off the shiny polish.

         “Neptune?”

         “Go to sleep.”

         “Nothing’s ever going to be the same again,” Jupiter whispers, her voice shaky and breaking.

         “You’re right. Everything is completely, irreversibly changed.”

         “I can never tell what you really mean,” Venus adds quietly.

         “Go to sleep. I really mean it.”

         “At least you’re honest,” Jupiter says. She sniffs.

         Neptune closes her eyes. “We’ll be okay anyway.”

 

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

         Neptune sits on the corner of Jupiter’s desk and draws on her fingernails with a black pen.

         Jupiter sits beside her, feet swinging back and forth. She taps her fingers against a drawer, chewing on the inside of her lip.

         Neptune glances at the guitar in the corner of the room. It’s beat up, scratches trailing all across it, but Jupiter has it gently propped up against her bedside table. Neptune coughs. “Still only know the one chord?”

         “Um. Maybe two now.” Jupiter laughs a little, tucking her hair behind her ear.

         Neptune is pressing their lips together before she knows what she’s doing.

         Jupiter grabs her hand and pulls her closer. She’s stumbling over something that she’s trying to say, face flushing red, but a hesitant smile slips onto her face.

         Neptune rests her head on her chest and realizes she missed the sound of her heartbeat.  

 

 


End file.
